


Undoubt

by stephanericher



Series: 31 Days of Horoscopes [26]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 13:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9609938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: 2/6: All the planets are very fortunately aligned for you, and the coming weeks should be great, Aquarius. Minor irritations today could make you wonder, though. You might worry that this good fortune won't last. Don't work yourself into a panic. This all continues through the next six months. However, you may need to focus sufficient effort if you'd like to make it last for a long time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so this 31-day challenge is based on the wonderful [31-Day Horoscope Challenge by @icandrawamoth](http://archiveofourown.org/series/621022). Simply: read your horoscope for the day from horoscope.com (Aquarius for me); use it as a writing prompt.

Getting past enough of his doubt to say yes is one thing; getting past more to actually moving in with Taiga is another. Getting past enough for Tatsuya to make himself believe that this was the right choice might be too far. It might not even be an issue of self-doubt; it might be that this was stupid and destined to fail from the beginning regardless of Tatsuya’s confidence level. That thought itself might be the self-doubt talking, but just because it’s that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong, and it leaves Tatsuya awake at night, staring at the wall and trying not to move around enough to wake Taiga up.  
  
He’d never had much of a problem when he’d just been staying over, even if it was for a few days at a time; there was always the option of going home and always the space he could draw between himself and Taiga, even when he didn’t want to. He doesn’t want to, now; he’s convinced himself he’s gotten better at letting Taiga in, but the house that had started feeling more like home than the place he’d lived since his junior year of college now feels like a trap, constraining his throat and pulling his hands behind his back, stretching his eyes wide open at midnight, making the gentle roll of tires against the street snap him out of any sort of lull close to sleep.  
  
He’s exhausted in the morning and sleepwalking through work, making stupid mistakes and staring into space and wondering when he’s going to get a reprimand from his manager when he thinks about it, having a fifth cup of coffee at two in the afternoon even though he knows it’s going to do nothing to help him sleep later. And he’s not talking to Taiga about it, even though he tells himself he should. (Knowing and doing are too different things, held apart by a chasm that looks too deep and wide to cross.)  
  
“Every time,” Tatsuya mumbles to the monitor, and then finishes the thought in his head—every time he opens up a little more Taiga responds, adjusts and helps him adjust back, like a fine-tuned basketball strategy.  
  
Every time it ends up okay; they end up closer. Every time the lead-up makes him feel like something’s rotting away inside, as if he should take a breath and smell it coming from his own body, but still paralyzing him and pushing his tongue back away from his teeth. And it only gets worse when he factors in the rest of the world and all the minor inconveniences it brings. The supermarket’s all out of the orange juice with the pulp; he hadn’t pushed his phone all the way into the charger last night and now it’s dying; he rides a flat tire the last third of the way home and spends what should be time fixing dinner or showering or unwinding replacing the flat and trying to patch up the old tire.  
  
Tatsuya plugs in his phone in the kitchen (even though he’d left the groceries in the backseat of the car they’re all somehow still fine; maybe it’s good there was no orange juice to spoil) and finds a two-hour-old text from Taiga that he’ll be back late. It fucking figures, but then again Tatsuya would probably pick a fight if Taiga were to walk in the door right now (not that there’s any guarantee he’ll be in a better mood later).  
  
Tatsuya’s too agitated to take a nap even though he’s still exhausted, and he’ll probably end up pacing waiting for Taiga if he stays inside. Even though he doesn’t even feel like it, Basketball’s always there, always something to go back to, no matter where he is or how alien he feels. He changes and heads back out, re-parking his car on the street before getting out and stretching. The air is stale but not oppressively hot; insects chatter lazily from the neighbors’ busy lawns (theirs needs to be mowed again, but they’ll get around to it on the weekend).  
  
He starts with drills, layups and dribbling back and forth, shots from points on an approximation of a three-point line (they really have to paint one in the driveway sometime) and free-throw distance, waiting until he’s made twenty of each before moving. He’s just getting into the rhythm and blur of turning around, faking out imaginary defenders, when the blast of a car horn breaks through. It’s Taiga.  
  
“Can I join?”  
  
“Course.”  
  
The thoughts he’d managed to push out come creeping back in, but not in the way they’d been weighing him down like cold water in his clothes. Not yet. (Talk to him.) Taiga’s parked, into the house, and stretching, in a few minutes tops, and Tatsuya checks him the ball and he lobs it at the hoop, missing by about a foot and a half, and Tatsuya’s not going to let him have that one back.  
  
They play until Tatsuya’s body is catching up with his mind, worn out and blurred; the sun’s going down and Taiga’s stomach is growling and Tatsuya remembers he hasn’t even started anything for dinner.  
  
“What are we having?” Taiga says.  
  
Tatsuya twirls the basketball on his finger. “I don’t know.”  
  
“Let me see what we have,” says Taiga. “I’ll take care of it.”  
  
Something inside of Tatsuya sinks like a dry sand tower with a flick to the foundations. He follows Taiga inside, into the kitchen, and sits at the table while Taiga rifles through the fridge.  
  
“Chicken salad?”  
  
“Sure. Let me see if we have walnuts.”  
  
There’s a sealed bag in the cabinet; Tatsuya passes it over to Taiga and their fingers touch. Taiga looks at him, like he already knows but hasn’t fully realized yet.  
  
“Can we talk?” says Tatsuya.  
  
Taiga covers his hand, letting go of the bag in the process and the walnuts fall to the table.  
  
“Absolutely. Whatever you need.”  
  
It’s already easier; the ties around his tongue and throat are loosening; he squeezes Taiga’s hand and they fall away.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll write them happier when i get more positive horoscopes or something. im sorry this flavor of kagahimu angst never gets old for me and i've written it 32094832 times B))))
> 
> also this is my 400th fic on ao3 so it had to be kagahimu lmao.


End file.
